National

BUSINESS WIRE

April 17, 1987

FINANCIAL MARKETS ARE CLOSED today in observance of Good Friday. Therefore, no market listings will be published in Saturday`s paper.

GENERAL MOTORS CORP. directors voted to end the giant automaker`s 70-year- old executive bonus plan and modify its stock option plan to improve profits. The plan was heavily criticized this year after GM paid bonuses to executives but said it made too little money last year to make profit-sharing payments to union employees. GM in 1986 paid bonus awards totaling $168.96 million, according to the company`s proxy statement. The nation`s largest automaker last year reported net income of $2.9 billion, down 32.9 percent from the previous year. The proposed change in the way executives are awarded will go to shareholders for approval at the May 22 annual meeting.

THREE TOP WALL STREET executives pleaded innocent Friday to an alleged insider-trading conspiracy. Lawyers for Robert M. Freeman, a partner and head of arbitrage at Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Richard B. Wigton, the suspended head of arbitrage and over-the-counter trading at Kidder, Peabody & Co.; and Timothy L. Tabor, a former arbitrager at Kidder Peabody, entered their pleas before U.S. District Judge Morris E. Lasker at federal court in Manhattan. All three, who are free on bond, were indicted last week on charges of conspiracy and securities fraud.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS: Housing construction fell 3.2 percent in March, the biggest decline in six months, the Commerce Department said, as sharp increases in mortgage rates in recent weeks continued to send shivers through the housing industry. New homes and apartments were being constructed at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.77 million units in March, down from a revised February rate of 1.83 million units. It was the first decline in housing starts since November and the biggest setback since a 6.2 percent drop last September. In the first three months, a total of 350,000 units have been started, compared with 373,800 during the same period a year ago. . . . The operating rate of factories, mines and utilities was 79.2 percent of capacity in March, down 0.5 percentage point from February. . . . Business inventories increased by 0.2 percent in February, following a huge 1 percent rise in January. Analysts believe the rise in inventories will boost economic growth in the January-March quarter but cut into activity in the spring quarter. Business sales jumped a record 4.4 percent in February, rebounding from a record decline the month before. Total business sales climbed to a seasonally adjusted $443.82 billion in February, reversing a record decline of 4.2 percent in January. The combination of a large increase in sales and a small rise in inventories sent the inventory-to-sales ratio down sharply in February to 1.49 from 1.55 in January. The new figure means it would take 1.49 months to deplete existing inventories at the February sales pace.

WICKES COS. INC. of Santa Monica, Calif. said it is firing some employees of the conglomerate`s Collins & Aikman subsidiary, which for a decade produced and sold $360 million worth of commercial carpeting that didn`t meet all flammability tests. Wickes said it couldn`t immediately quantify the potential liability in the situation but expects it to be ``a material amount.`` As a result of the uncertainty, the manufacturing and retailing company said its independent auditor, Arthur Anderson & Co., intends to qualify its opinion on Wickes` financial statement for the year ended Jan. 31.

ELSEWHERE IN THE NATION: In New York Time Inc. said its board selected Jason McManus to succeed the retiring Henry Grunwald as editor-in-chief at the end of the year. McManus, 53, the managing editor of Time magazine, would become the fourth editor-in-chief in Time Inc.`s 64-year history. The editor-in-chief supervises editorial content of Time`s seven New York-based magazines, which are Time, Life, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Money, People and Discover. . . In Washington, the Internal Revenue Service, trying to reduce a huge backlog of disputes over tax shelters, announced a procedure aimed at encouraging investors to settle their cases without going to trial. One procedure is for about 75,000 taxpayers whose pre-1983 shelter investments are being challenged by the IRS in 5,800 cases. A separate plan is for those who invested in commodities transactions known as straddles before June 23, 1981.

FLORIDA

BURGER KING`S chairman and chief executive officer, J. Jeffrey Campbell, will move from the fast food chain`s Miami headquarters to the Minneapolis headquarters of its parent firm, Pillsbury Co., according to a story publsihed in AdWeek. The trade publication, which attributed its report to anonymous sources, said it was unclear what job Campbell would take in Minneapolis. Spokesmen at Burger King did not return telephone calls Thursday.